LIFE: In your new movie, Beatrix Potter best expresses herself through the characters she created, like Peter Rabbit and Flopsy Bunny. How do you best express yourself?
ZELLWEGER: Oh, I don’t know. I’m not a performer. I don’t want to hop up on a stage and go “Look at me! I’m Renée! What do you think?” That’s not me. What I do is very different. If I want to express something, it’s through the filter of a character. So I never feel exposed.
LIFE: You made the movie in a very difficult part of your life last year.
ZELLWEGER: It was important for me to make this film—going to work and being with my friends, getting through the days.
LIFE: What was the hardest part about 2006 for you?
ZELLWEGER: Well, I’m sure that if you buy groceries, you might have read something about it. It’s not on the top of my favorite things that have ever happened. [Her eyes well up] I’m not a superficial person. I don’t care about what’s on the grocery-store shelves. That’s just salt in the wound. But it’s not a television show. I lived it. It’s a very sad experience for anyone to go through, and it’s not fun when people decide that it’s a lovely thing to capitalize on. But you’re oblivious to that because you are living the reality of the experience—which is devastating.
LIFE: Are you two still friends?
ZELLWEGER: I’ll tell you that I was saddened. I’ll tell you that it took . . . it’s, it’s not something I could reason away. It’s something that I’ll live through, but I don’t want to talk about it beyond that because it matters to me.
LIFE: But is there anything that you feel you need to change about your life in the coming year?
ZELLWEGER: Yes. I need to find a way to manage the things that are very difficult for me in terms of fame. I need to find a way to have more grace in certain situations. I’m not good at the majority of things that come with celebrity. I like my job. I don’t mind getting up at three in the morning on the Isle of Man, working in a cowshed that smells like poo. I’m okay with 16-hour days. I’m okay with living out of my suitcase. I am not good at the commodification of me as a person—it’s dehumanizing. I’m not good at it because my values are different than that, and so I’m disappointed by it. But it’s not my place to be disappointed by it. I need to find a way to be okay with those things.
LIFE: Is it a question of trying to distance yourself from it? To care less about what’s written about you?
ZELLWEGER: It’s hard to not care. It takes a long time to realize the only way to win is to resign yourself to losing, because then you lose less. Because you are going to lose. There are going to be people who capitalize on your losses, on your sadness, and they’ll create it. I expect that if I have a personal crisis, somebody is going to sell magazines because of it. I expect that there will be paparazzi in the street. It’s the other side of fame. I’ve seen stories where people speculate about what it is that [you're] saying based on your body language. It’s incredible to me that that’s where our society has gone.
LIFE: You want people to respect you and recognize your films . . .
ZELLWEGER: No, that’s not the goal. It’s rewarding when you do something that somebody cares about—not just in this medium, but in the world. When you look at yourself and say “Can I contribute something?” I look at this and think, Well, what is acting anyway? I question the value of it all the time, of what it is that I “give.”
LIFE: But you entertain millions.
ZELLWEGER: I can’t see it that way. Every time someone comes up to me and says something [nice], it still surprises me that they’ve seen [one of her movies]. To me, these are little projects that I have to believe are private experiences or I couldn’t do them. I couldn’t do them knowing that potentially I’m going to disappoint people. I think about acting as this thing I’m lucky to do because I love it. But if I had looked at it from an outsider’s perspective in the beginning and known “This is what your life will be like on a daily basis, can you handle it?” I might have said “I don’t know.”
LIFE: Knowing what you do now, what would you have done differently?
ZELLWEGER: I’m not sure. When Nurse Betty came out [in 2000] I was deciding “Now is the time. I know what my life will look like after I participate on this level in the public arena. I am old enough, and I am grounded enough . . . I’ll be all right.” And then it changed. The parameters of what was considered fair game broadened. . . . But here’s the flip side: It ain’t 10 kids on welfare. It’s not being unable to afford your housing and having your job taken away from you. It’s not a sick child . . .
LIFE: . . . it’s not all those awful things, so, you say, get over it.
ZELLWEGER: Get over it! But there are still days you’re just a person.
LIFE: Beatrix Potter loved children but didn’t have any of her own. Do you want kids?
ZELLWEGER: I don’t think about it. I don’t believe in prerequisites for happiness. It’s not a mantra, it’s just my composition. I don’t have a list of things I need in order to be happy. I like to take the good that’s in the mix of life and use that to create the happiness today.
LIFE: But what about marriage? Did you always dream of that?
ZELLWEGER: No, no.
LIFE: So your thinking was, If I meet somebody . . .
ZELLWEGER: If the circumstances are right, then sure. It was more about it being the right thing to do.
LIFE: Do you think you will fall in love again?
ZELLWEGER: Maybe.
LIFE: And if you don’t, would you feel that there was something missing, having been in love before?
ZELLWEGER: I don’t know, because I’m different now. I’m different than I was entering into [her relationship with Chesney]. And so, I’m open to something new. . . . I just don’t have any expectations. That doesn’t mean that I’m not a romantic, and it doesn’t mean that I don’t have things that I believe in, because I do.
LIFE: So what do you do to escape?
ZELLWEGER: Road trip. Whenever I can. It’s been a while.
LIFE: Do you still have your truck?
ZELLWEGER: Same truck that I’ve always had . . . an old Chevy. A year and a half ago I drove from New York to Florida to see my parents. I rented a small car because I wanted to drop it off in Florida. I didn’t know where I was going to go.
LIFE: What was the best experience you had on that trip?
ZELLWEGER: A Motel 6 in South Carolina. I wrote a lot that night, and I drove around the little town.
LIFE: Do you keep a diary?
ZELLWEGER: I don’t keep a conventional diary. I’d bore myself. I put my thoughts on my BlackBerry and hope it doesn’t crash.
LIFE: Or hope you don’t lose it.
ZELLWEGER: Oh, I did that! That’s a terrible 10 minutes.
LIFE: You’re about to start filming George Clooney’s Leatherheads, a 1920s romantic comedy. Is it true he sent you the script one night and you committed the next morning?
ZELLWEGER: Oh, I was in before I read the script. I’m a big fan of his directing, and he’s charming. But I’m scared—I’ve heard he’s relentless with the on-set pranks. He plans months in advance, and I’m terrified of what he’s got up his sleeve for me.
LIFE: So the thing you are looking forward to most in 2007 is . . .
ZELLWEGER: Leatherheads. That will be nice.
